Page 71 of Absentia Mori

“Must’ve been hard to do with only one eye,” Valentin taunts.

“Val,” Maureen warns, her nostrils flaring.

Raithe just shrugs. “Whatever, man.”

“I was locked in the basement of the ballroom with Villette,” I murmur.

Fabien paces in front of me, his blue eyes wild. “We ended up findingyouall instead. We tried tostopthe fighting.” He glares at Riot. “But you didn’t want to hear what we had to say.”

“That night was chaos,” Riot rasps. “Utter fucking chaos.”

“Is that your formal apology?” Mordecai snickers.

Atlas downs a vial of poison as sweat beads on his forehead. “We took your sigils and stuck you in Absentia Asylum, for fuck’s sake. I think an apology is almost insulting at this point.”

“Speaking of that evil place, how the fuck didyouend up there, Lib?” Maureen asks.

I hold up my snifter, motioning to Val to pour me another. I fixate on the golden liquid sloshing into the glass as he pours with a steady hand.

I take a few more sips while they wait patiently. “I woke up there after a night of partying in Hemlock. They strapped me to a bed. Told me that I was mentally ill. That I wasn’t who I claimed I was. The doctor called me aJane Doe. Said I was delusional. But she was in on it too. They kept me in an induced coma for six months.”

Maureen downs the rest of her drink, and for a second, I think she’s going to shatter the glass with her furious grip. “Do you know who did this to you?”

I nod, my stomach twisting in knots again. “I found a bottle of Blackwell gin in the doctor’s office. The private reserve label. Dr. Hall confirmed it was your grandmother’s doing… right before I killed her.”

Riot’s gaze flits over Raithe, Mordecai, and Fabien, taking notice of their blood-stained clothes. “You helped Lib get out?”

Mordecai tightens his grip on my arm. “We blamed her at first. If we hadn’t been tasked to watch her at Tenebrose then we’d still be safe in our beds back in Hemlock. But things change. We realized she’s a victim of this world, the same as us.”

Fabien grips my other shoulder. “We slaughtered every last one of them.”

“She helpedusget out,” Raithe adds.

Maureen actually shatters the glass for real. Glass shards explode from her palm. “You have my blessing to take whatever revenge you see fit.”

“Maur,” I gasp. “Your hand… how are younotbleeding?” Not a single piece of glass has punctured her skin. What the fuck?

Light swirls in her eyes again. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to notice the power emanating from her. She commands the room like a queen on her throne. Nocturnus serveshernow. I can sense it in every gesture they make around her. It’s beautiful.

“We’re the elders of Nocturnus now,” she starts. “It’s a long story. A painful one… I’m still processing everything that happened, but I’m okay. I know why you and Villette weren’t born in Ever Graves. Your mothers gave birth to you here to avoid the curse, to keep you from the nightmare men. My mother wasn’t so lucky. Her nightmare man is my real father. And the reason Penny Blackwell disowned us. So yeah, you have my fucking blessing to reign hell upon her house.”

Fuck. “The nightmare men are real? I thought that was just a myth. Like to scare the fuck out of us when we were kids. So that means you are… half nightmare?”

She shrugs. “Yup. Like I said, still processing.”

I shake my head in disbelief. How could so much happen in such a short time? “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you for all that.”

“Fuck no, Lib, I’m sorry that my crazy family locked you up. I think the only part I don’t understand is the why.” She crinkles her nose as Val hands her a fresh glass of whiskey. “Try not to break this one, love,” he teases.

I sigh as I try to piece together my thoughts. “It all leads back to Jessamine. She died from poison. Thorn poison. Penny couldn’t go after Atlas because he’s Nocturnus. And my brother Aries is her grandson’s best friend. So she decided to punish me instead. To fuck with my family. The joke’s on her, though, Idon’t have one single text from either of my parents.” I wave my phone in the air.

Maureen’s eyes glaze with tears. “That’s so fucked up.”

Mordecai nudges me. “Tell her about the rest.”

I nod as all eyes fixate on me. “Years ago, during one of my binges, I broke into my father’s office to mess with him. I was angry and wanted to fuck everything up. Stupid teenager stuff. As if some ruffled files were going to make up for what he did to me…” I knock back the rest of my whiskey.

“Fuck,” Val murmurs, clearly recounting his own memories of abuse at the hands of his father.

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